Gongylolepis maroana Badillo in Bot. Soc. Venez. 
Ciéne. Nat. 8 (1943) 237. 
Collections of Gongylolepis Martiana trom Colombia 
have recently been reported as G. maroana Badillo 
(Schultes in Bot. Mus. Leafl. Harvard Univ. 13 (1949) 
310; ibid. 14 (1949) 47 thid. 16 (1958) 95). In pointing 
out the synonymy of Gongylolepis maroana and Stifftia 
Martiana Baker, Steyermark and Cuatrecasas (Steyer- 
mark /oe. cit.) state that Maroa(a Venezuelan town on the 
Rio Guainia), the type locality of Gongylolepis maroana, 
‘is near the type locality (Prov. Alto Amazonas, in. . 
montis Araracuara, 500 pedes supra fluvius Japura) in 
Brazil,where Martius collected St:fftia Martiana.”” There 
are several errors in this statement that require rectifica- 
tion. Although in the days of Martius” collecting, one 
hundred and thirty years ago, Brazil laid claim to the 
Amazonas far west as Araracuara, this now-famous local- 
ity has been under undisputed Colombian sovereignty for 
much more than half a century and les some 850 kilo- 
meters from the Colombian- Brazilian frontier. The con- 
tinued citing of specimens from Araracuara as Brazilian 
creates serious problems in our studies of Amazonian 
phytogeography. The statement that Maroa is near Ara- 
racuara is misleading, for the straight distance is some 650 
kilometers, and they lie in different river valleys. Further- 
more, Maroa lies on the granitic Brazilian shield of Pre- 
Cambrian age, whereas the mountains of Araracuara, 
where Gongylolepis Martiana is known to grow, are 
metamorphic quartzites of Cretaceous age. The presence 
of the same species on both of these formations is unusual, 
though not unique. 
The collections cited previously and those cited below 
from Colombia show that the concept is widely dispersed 
on the remnant Cretaceous hills in the Amazonian basin 
of that country: ufllen 3167) (Yurupari Falls, Rio 
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